In Theory… Alien Blackout

Hey hey hey!

Ok so, some while back this funny thing happened. And by funny I mean a “CRAZY SUPER COOL LIFE LONG DREAM COME TRUE!” -type thing. We got the opportunity to contribute and take part in the. one. and. only. ALIEN universe!!! Huh, is this real, did I just write that, is the game about to be released?!?!

Huh, had to calm down there for a bit. Alien, H.R.Giger, Dan O’Bannon, Ridley Scott and James Cameron and their works have been the biggest inspirations throughout my creative life. When I was old enough, my first tattoo was the Alien on my left shoulder. To say I’m a fan is an under and overstatement. After being exposed to Alien (at too early an age) it was love and death from first sight. From the coldest nightmares to deep obsession, there was something that resonated to the core. Overstatement in the sense that the level of direction and appreciation and lessons learned through these pieces would be impossible if blinded by pure fandom. It takes healthy criticism to see all the different layers at which these stories work and why. In this creative mind Alien/s, Terminator, Abyss, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, Total Recall etc. from the late 70s to the 90s are a major input and Reset is the output (ok so some games might have affected as well).

When the opportunity to co-develop an actual Alien game with Rival Games was presented, there was no hesitation. As core PC/console developers we saw eye-to-eye from the get-go that we wanted to create a no BS Alien experience. Having played and deeply enjoyed (and a couple heart attacks suffered) Alien Isolation (played through with the Oculus Rift), our task wasn’t going to be easy, especially taking the mobile platform into account. If one word would be used to describe the whole that is the Alien, it would be ‘unknown’. Unknown what it is, where it is, what it does, where it came from. Its eyes concealed, our fate unknown. This is what all great Alien content, being it film, graphic novels, books, games understand and embrace and that was our starting point. From there onward we tackled the task of “how can we bring the fear of the unknown to the tiny screen”.

This was exactly what FoxNext and D3 Go! were looking for. They shared and displayed the same love for the franchise and in this case it meant a premium experience with no micro-transactions. This was to be the first true to its core Alien experience for the mobile audience. And after crunching things together with our combined tiny task force in a ridiculous time frame, that’s exactly what we accomplished.

So what about Reset? We started on this road to bring you that which burns in our hearts and minds and we’re using everything to make it happen the way we want, undiluted. Like we have stated before, when doing something you want, there is no reason to quit. It is projects like Alien Blackout that enable us to continue financially. And the funny thing is that (this actually is a bit funny) the entity which is the Alien, which has ultimately creatively fueled me to create Reset has now also fueled it financially and at the same time it has received a bit of our love and possibly goes on to inspire someone else.

All in all it has been one hell of a (express elevator) ride (to hell). Alien: Blackout ($4.99) is out today on iOS and Android.

I am overjoyed to read that the reason for your long absence was a GOOD one! I was worried you had both suffered terrible tragedies.

Congratulations on shipping AB. It looks great. Did you somehow manage to cram Reset’s rendering code into mobile bandwidth/fillrate/features? Hmm. Wondering if this means Reset will be ported to mobile too…

It’s pretty obvious by now that Reset is not coming out anytime soon and you probably barely have anything working.

Just let people move on, man.

This post is just a very shill story about how you guys are now working on a Mobile Game nobody cares and asked for. And yes, I totally get you guys need money as the KickStarter cash (remember that?) has run dry.

Just spill the beans, mates. That initial trailer was either CG or ran using code you guys had from the 3DMark days, you guys believed you could craft your own engine from the scratch, develop all assets, and couldn’t do it.

And that’s it.

Say you’re putting it on a hiatus and now you guys are working on Mobile Games or whatever. We all know one of these days the “we’re porting to Unreal” BS will come, just be honest guys.

Late reply, I know. I’m really happy to hear that you guys have found some more energy to continue Reset! I’ve been waiting for a few years, and pop in every few months to check up on it and follow development. I wanted to wish you guys good luck!!!

Graphic design is a profession whose business is the act of designing, programming, and create visual communications, generally produced by industrial means and intended to convey specific messages to specific social groups, with a clear purpose.

In Theory, maybe some of us should sue you and your company for false claims, and not providing a product that was sell to us in 2013 for a “soon” release date… Yet you still find some time to work for an another studio and event take vacations to Greece but you don’t spent a minute to tell or say something about your vaporware ?
We believed in you two and in your game, we paid your project, and now you just ignore us all.
From now, your studio and reputation will be seen like the alien game you helped with : “shitty”

i don’t think you will accept the same words for some one about your dream.
dreams do not need to left aside…
let them do what they can, there are a lot for scammers out there, but i don’t think this is. and no reason.

Tracked you guys down again after 6 years. Not dead huh? Hopefully Reset finishes someday, but I’m wondering how bad the Duke Nukem Forever/Diakatana effect is getting. Could have to rebuild the whole thing from scratch if you don’t get it out before PS5/xboxwhatever come out next year.

FWIW I thought Alien Blackout was a massive disappointment compared to what I would’ve wanted (a full Alien Isolation sequel) but I played it with an open mind and thought it turned out pretty good, for what it was.

I wish there was more content though. Seems a waste to do all the work of putting a game like that together and then only make 5 levels. I finished it in a couple hours and up to that point had assumed I was just getting though the introduction, waiting for the other shoe to drop… Isolation teased victory/escape multiple times, raising the stakes each time… Blackout just _ended_.

Having to manage power to Aliens-style autoturrets, find and rescue new survivors, maybe finding/crafting some improvised weapons, needing to stealthily get from A to B through a hive, etc… there was so much left on the table.

Wow, you guys really must have some poor morals to just leave us hanging for a year and then advertise Alien blackout, which be honest with yourselves, was a very unwise decision on Fox Interactive’s part. Just confirm a cancellation of reset. People eventually will forget about you and move on. Admitting failure is not just the morally stronger thing to do, its apart of growing into a better version of yourself, be it a better development team or at this point, a better person with better ethics

You know what you gotta do, right? Go back in time a couple years and collaborate with your former selves on Reset. Then when those copies of you catch up with your current selves, the four of you go back in time again, and the eight of you can get it done.
It’ll totally work out because your former selves will be (have been?) _expecting_ you to come/go back.

It’ss been three years since you said you were finalizing the game but had to postpone its release. I paid money for this game over five years ago. What is going on with Reset? Is it still being developed? Getting one status update per year on the progress isn’t exactly enough, since you crowd-funded this game. Backers want to know what’s going on. We were promised a product we paid for. I’m still interested in the game, but my feelings towards the developers are anything but positive… Just tell us something! Has it been canceled? What have you been doing with the game? Are you going to keep polishing it until the end of time? Why not let backers test the alpha/beta/whatever stage the game is in to find bugs?

Here are some words you wrote yourselves in 2014 after the crowd funding campaign:

“In Finland crowd funding is legal when it is based on pre-sales: funding that is based on selling actual goods. Money gathering without compensation is illegal for companies.

One thing is pretty clear from our experience. Effective communication is vital. Through every possible channel. … In this age of noisiness, you must make more noise to stand out from the noise.”

We have not gotten a product. We paid for a product, as you say, as a pre-purchase of something that was promised to be delivered to us, the customers, in 2014. We have not gotten updates about Reset since January 24, 2019, and even that was just a “work is still in progress” and no more information about what is happening. The last proper development update is from June, 2016. That was three and a half years ago.

According to an article on Vice (google “vice what happened to reset”) you have received monetary support from the Finnish government. I’m quite sure you have to actually make something with that money, instead of just take it and run with it.

You have sold people products that you have not delivered six years after payment. You have received government funding for a project that has not materialized into anything at all. I count two cases of criminal fraud right there.

If you have something to say to defend yourselves, then say it. Otherwise, you are going to be in legal trouble over your vaporware, for which people and the Finnish government have paid you money.

This game is never going to be released. Too bad, because it sure had potential. We have waited for several years without any payoff, and I’m sure the developers want to do something else with their lives than focusing on a single game. So let’s just pack it up, and the last man remember to turn off the light.

I knew you guy’s were pretty much doomed when the kickstarter aimed for some pretty lofty goals.But it was such a cool design I bookmarked the game.

The original demo that took a lot of scrounging on the internet to find and even more to get up and running, wasn’t great but also not any worse than other games of the time.

And then I lost track of you for what five years?

Damn has it really been five years? Don’t know about you but the last five have had a spectacular set of messes and heartache personally.

Saw Reset on steam greenlight….that was a while ago even greenlight is gone now. Pity nothing shipped at that point. Even a fairly decent sandbox puzzle level for giggles would have been welcome.

And then I lost you guys again.

Last three years I have gotten my act together more or less, getting away from bad influences, buying a house, moving across country, getting a better job.

Gaming isn’t so important in my life as it was nearly a decade ago now when RESET first popped up.

found you guys again today when cleaning out an old firefox install.

Just watched the twelve minute gameplay trailer from a few years ago something like five minutes ago as of this post.

Wow spectacular.

If the footage was true you were only a handful of voice acting and assets away from a solid adventure game. I don’t know what happened, or if it was all a canned render with careful splices but however it was it was impressive.

And here we are on a post from very nearly a year ago for a phone game that barely made a splash.

Aliens was good but the franchise isn’t what it used to be when it was just alien and CGI wasn’t the glue that held Hollywood together.

I do hope RESET is still somehow a weekend project of love, but I also hope it finally sees it’s release before it’s ten year anniversary.

Merry Christmas from here in December 2019.

May the new year bring joy, a full alpha release start to finish game, a story that makes sense of such a wonderful mechanic, and not to many cutscenes.

I just want end by saying sometimes projects have a way of getting away from you. There is a point where you can do a thing start to finish even if it is not perfect for you but it is perfect for the fans because it is done.

I hope 2020 is the year it all comes together and you guys get a very nice paycheck.

I’ve got a little black book with my poems in
Got a bag with a toothbrush and a comb in
When I’m a good dog
They sometimes throw me the bone in

I got elastic bands keepin’ my shoes on
Got those swollen hand blues
I got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from
I’ve got electric light

And I’ve got second sight
I got amazing powers of observation
And that is how I know, when I try to get through
On the telephone to you, there’ll be nobody home

I’ve got the obligatory Hendrix perm and the inevitable pinhole burns
All down the front of my favorite satin shirt
I’ve got nicotine stains on my fingers, I’ve got a silver spoon on a chain
Got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains

I’ve got wild staring eyes
And I’ve got a strong urge to fly, but I got nowhere to fly to
Ooh, babe when I pick up the phone there is still nobody home
I’ve got a pair of Gohills boots and I got fading roots

Since your company made about 20k euros of benefit last year and that your studio seems to manage getting some good contracts (75k of sells) what about finishing and release the game that you guys sell us in 2013 ? 7 years it’s about time right ?